Mechanisms of Verbal Humor

This paper deals with the aspects of meaning of verbal humor that are responsible for eliciting laughs. It is generally accepted that the perception of incongruity is involved in the experience of humor, but few clear definitions or explanations have been given of the nature of this incongruity. Among the few, Curc (1995, 1997, 1998), for example, tries to analyze verbal humor, specifically the relation between a stimulus and the hearer's interpretation of it, in line with the principle of relevance (Spreber and Wilson 1986, 1995). However, as he admits, his account covers only a limited amount of cases. This paper will delve into the meaning of humor with extensive data and present a set of individual mechanisms involved in humor. It will also propose a new conceptual theory of humor that persuasively accounts for the mechanisms of humor as a whole.